"Report to the general, the Third Army has sent a report on the situation of the battle." The commander of the Northwest Group Army in Lingzhou ordered the flying cavalry to bring Wang Houchun's battle briefing.

Wan Yi took it and took a quick look and said with a smile: "It seems that this guy is really bold, but this is good, we can also take advantage of it." ”

Tie Liang had just led his troops into Lingzhou to join Wan Yi, and after hearing Wan Yi's words, he smiled and said, "Does the marshal have any special plans?" Now that the war in the southwest will officially start in a while and a half, we can't slow down Lingzhou, the lord has explained, the camera will recover Liangzhou and open up the eastern part of the Hexi Corridor. ”

"Our army's hoarding of the Lingzhou front line will only make the opponent scruples and make it difficult to defend the eastward advance. Therefore, Houchun's suggestion to our northwest is to wait until the southwest Yuanzhou direction fights, and the cavalry of the Fourth Army Headquarters and your heavy cavalry battalion will feint to attack Yuanzhou, causing an emptiness in the direction of Lingzhou and attracting the opponent to attack, and you will have another left hook, bypass Helan Mountain, and hit the enemy's flank, and I will be responsible for the front, and let Hou Yong flank the rear army of Wen Mo from the north, so that you can directly kill Helan Mountain and enter the Longzhou region. Wan Yi pointed to the signs on the map.

"I think so. But your frontal only 20,000 infantry will be able to withstand the impact of our old opponent? Tie Liang had no opinion on Wan Yi's battle layout, but he was worried about the 20,000 infantry serving as the Chinese army, and said: "Otherwise, let the heavy cavalry battalion stay, we have experimented, and the 20,000 heavy cavalry battalion can easily defeat the cavalry group charge below 50,000 people." Before he finished speaking, Wan Yi waved his hand and said with a smile: "Don't worry, infantry fighting cavalry has always been the old business of our Lingwu Army, and my 20,000 infantry is guaranteed to play the role of the Chinese army, and who told you that I am going to face off against the Wen Mo people?" You, since you were transferred to the heavy cavalry camp by the lord, why did you start to be superstitious about pure force, because in the eyes of the generals, there can be only force. ”

Wan Yi finally seized an opportunity to prepare for a lesson to his brother, but the latter obviously didn't take this to heart, but smiled: "Anyway, I don't care, I'll do whatever you say, big brother." My heavy cavalry camp can do anything. ”

Wan Yi also smiled bitterly when he saw this guy's appearance, so he had to take his staff officers to start making a plan, and at the same time let the 20,000 infantry in Lingzhou and the subordinate ballista and hellfire brigade detachments go out of Helan Mountain to deploy defenses, blocking the only way for Lingzhou to enter Hexi. At the same time, in the name of the headquarters of the Northwest Group Army, Hou Yong of Dingyuan City was summoned to act as planned.

Just when Wan Yi's side cooperated with the southwest as planned and was ready to give the Wen people a real but a virtual one, in the eastern part of Yuanzhou in the southwest, Wang Houchun planned to come to a real field battle and defeat this enemy in one fell swoop. Unlike Lingzhou, which needed to take on the task of recovering Liangzhou, the primary purpose of the Southwest Group Army was to defeat the ability of the Longyou Tubo people to advance eastward in a war to avoid having worries when passing through the Central Plains. Therefore, after Wang Houchun received the order of the General Staff and the information sent by Xuan Yingwei, he didn't want to prepare to repeat his old tricks, so the whole army was dispatched in three ways, day and night, and began to appear from Fengxiang and other places, and rushed towards Yuanzhou.

Starting from Fengxiang to Wonju is not only a long way, but also high mountains along the way, with high altitude and obvious altitude sickness. However, the Central Army of the Southwest Group Army, with the third battalion as the core, relied on the infantry to run at the speed of the cavalry, and actually advanced in parallel with the vanguard and the battalion directly under the cavalry, and the mixed infantry and cavalry of more than 60,000 people flew across the plateau at a rapid pace, and arrived at the border of Wonju three days later. On the contrary, it was the Modao Battalion, a heavy equipment unit that was originally used as the main force, and other non-combat units attached to the Logistics Department who were in the back.

Such a large-scale march of the Tibetan people naturally knew about it early on, but when they saw Wang Houchun's army enter the plateau, they also drove the troops that had been assembled to Yuanzhou, and the two sides began to arrive at the battlefield one after another around the center of Yuanzhou City, and a large war of unprecedented scale took shape in this sparsely populated plateau.

The commander of the Tubo army is still the mulberry bear a year ago, but this time the Tiance army is led by Wang Houchun, with 100,000 foot cavalry, competing with the Tubo people, the main forces of the two sides have not yet contacted, and the skirmishes of the flying horse scouts have been fought hundreds of times. For archery and horse archery, the Tiance army can not be compared with the Tubo people, but the new weapons prepared by the whole army of the scout team have made the opponent suffer enough, this kind of restoration of a part of the chain crossbow and Qin crossbow in the Qin family after several generations of improvement of the new crossbow machine has been able to achieve five consecutive shots, and inherited the advantages of the Qin crossbow's long range and power, which quickly offset the pressure brought by the opponent's riding and shooting. These are only the advantages brought by technology, the most important tactics of the scout team have also been improved in this reorganization of the whole army, the small-scale assault tactics pioneered by the Flying Eagle Brigade have been promoted, and the scout teams of each army are personally trained by the group of soldiers of the Flying Eagle Brigade.

However, as the brigades of the two sides arrived at the front line, this skirmish began to gradually subside, and the ratio of troops on both sides was already on the table, and except for the difference in troops, the number was basically equal. However, compared to the Tiance army, this side is only concentrated a group army, the Tubo people can be called pouring out of the nest this time, Longyou Tubo is a branch of the Duomi royal line, entrenched in the Tibetan border plateau centered on Hezhou, although the strength is a line in the Tubo branch, but the population has not developed for so many years, and the area occupied by the Qi is too heavy for the Han people and other ethnic groups, and there are many internal contradictions, but because these people are actually the descendants of those border generals when Tubo expanded, Therefore, the strength of the soldiers and horses in its headquarters is much stronger than that of the royal families themselves in Tibet.

These materials were placed on Wang Houchun's desk, but it was obvious that he was already familiar with them. He was also familiar with Sang Xiong's psychology at the moment, so he carefully laid out a subtle plan and waited for Sang Xiong to make a move.

"Marshal, all the generals have arrived." Just as Wang Houchun was carefully taking stock of his plans, the staff officer informed him that he was going to hold a pre-war meeting. The strength allocation of the Southwest Group Army is actually very good, the Fourth Army itself is Wang Houchun's old troops, the third battalion, the sixth battalion and Li Tianyi's seventh battalion, plus the Modao battalion and the directly subordinate battalion, it can be said that it has both offense and defense.

"Okay, let's have a meeting when everyone is here, and think about how to kill these damn Tubos." Wang Houchun saw that the people had arrived, and spoke.

"Dashuai, do you have an idea? Let's say okay first, my Modao Battalion is waiting for revenge, and this time the main force of the Chinese army must be my Modao Battalion. Before Wang Houchun's words were finished, Shi Jian took over the conversation and began, but it was obvious that these guys did not have a worry-free master, and even Xue Yang, who was promoted to the new commander of the third battalion because of Wang Houchun's promotion, threw off his arms and prepared to grab the position of the main force.

"Okay, who told you that I was going to set up a formation to prepare for the Chinese army?" Wang Houchun saw the appearance of these guys and hurriedly asked them to stop, if the quarrel continued, it would be stopped, so after letting everyone stop, he simply said by himself: "In this field battle, I am ready to change the previous consistent formation mode and fight a plateau encirclement and annihilation battle, so you don't think about the position of the Chinese army, you can think of it, then the mulberry bear can't think of it?" He was thinking about how to repay the shame of being captured by his lord a year ago. I guess he's pretty much done with our tactics, so I decided—"

"The whole army is divided into four routes, the first road is the third battalion, led by me personally, to take the lead, that is, the frontal Chinese army you want, Li Tianyi and Xu Ying, you two detour in the direction of due south, and wait until noon tomorrow, if the enemy forces suppress the first road, when the battlefield situation is reversed, you must rush out, intercept the opponent's vanguard, and cover the withdrawal of the first road; The third road is the Modao battalion, arranged in the direction of due north, your task is different from the second road, but the attack time is the same, the second road is responsible for intercepting the opponent's vanguard troops, your task is to destroy this enemy army as quickly as possible, and then turn around and face the opponent's follow-up troops; The fourth road is a battalion directly under you, Lu Yi, your task is more special, that is, to detour behind the enemy, but it is not the opponent's rear army, because Sang Xiong will definitely ambush the elite men and horses in the rear army waiting for our army to enter. Your task is to eliminate the second wave of the opponent's forces after the Modao battalion is eliminated, if the enemy's brigade is pressed by the whole army, you will find a way to attack Wonju City, and if the opponent is defeated and retreats, then stop the momentum of the opponent's retreat, and work together with the Modao battalion to encircle and annihilate the opponent. Similarly, Tianyi Xu Ying, your task is that if the opponent's whole army is assaulted, your task is to make a detour to Yuanzhou to assist the directly subordinate battalion to occupy Yuanzhou, and then the direct battalion will go out of the city to counterattack the opponent's flank; If the opponent retreats, assist the Modao battalion to expand the results. ”

"Marshal, what about our third battalion? Be a pioneer on the first road? As soon as these words were finished, the other generals were digesting the meaning, and by the way, they began to discuss the cooperation, but Xue Yang was dumbfounded, the first way was just to fight as a vanguard and then withdraw, and there seemed to be nothing to do with him in the back?"

"After the third battalion retreats, follow my actions, for one purpose, to take the mulberry bear for me and escort it to Chang'an, so that we can march to Anxi in the future, and sacrifice the dead with his head." Wang Houchun's words shocked those present, and they suddenly understood the intention of their boss, this is no longer a battle, this is thinking about all the Tubo people's surface, the Han people have revenge after a hundred years.

"Everyone, what I want to say is that we can allow defeat when we fight against other feudal town armies, but I don't allow you to make any mistakes against the Tubo people, my Tang army will defeat the Tubo people even if all the troops die in battle, and the heroic spirits of Anxi a hundred years ago watched me and other descendants in the sky to avenge them." Wang Houchun smashed his fist on his handsome case, and his hideous expression was clearly visible.

"Please rest assured, even if I die, I will fulfill my wish for the ancestors of Anxi, let me replant the banner of the Tang Dynasty on the land of Anxi, and let the Tubo people pay for their blood debts." Shi Jian knelt on one knee and said in a deep voice. He is a descendant of Anxi, and he understands the meaning of Wang Houchun's words better.

"Immediately arrange for people to make a big flag, the font is bigger, Anxi hates, and the blood debt is repaid. After the war, all the corpses of prisoners of war were placed in Beijing for me to serve as a warning to future generations. Wang Houchun's words were full of madness, but none of the generals present felt that it was wrong.

Early the next morning, that is, on the fifth day of August 889 AD, the Southwest Group Army of the Tiance Army and the Tubo Army set up a position outside the city of Yuanzhou, and the battle officially began.

But what made Sang Xiong dumbfounded was that there were only more than 10,000 infantry men and horses on the opposite side of the forward force of the 30,000 army that he had carefully prepared, standing there sparsely, not feeling that there were more than 30,000 elite cavalry on the opposite side.

"General, there are only more than 10,000 people in the Tiance Army." The forward general quickly returned to Malay to report and ask for countermeasures.

Sang Xiong looked carefully at the rear of the Tiance Army, and did not see any signs of ambush, the surroundings were empty, and the Tiance Army camp did not have any activities except for the long-range strike force that was waiting at the camp gate. But for people like Mulberry Bear, who have already eaten an ambush once, the more it shows that there is none, it means that there is. So I couldn't make up my mind for a while.

"General, they only have 10,000 infantry troops, even if there is an ambush, there may not be many people, let's just kill them." The deputy general next to him saw Sang Xiong's hesitant gaze and hurriedly said.

Sang Xiong shook his head and said, "The Han people are scheming, and they always like to use stratagems to win wars, so we can't be fooled by him." After a pause, he suddenly smiled and said, "Since they want to play, then let's play with him too." Santo, you ask the forward force to send a team of 10,000 people to probe the opponent's bottom, don't care about the outcome of the battle, the main thing is to play out the opponent's intentions to complete the mission. The others immediately prepare, as soon as their back hands are discovered, immediately rush to me, the flat-bottomed field has no one to match our highland knights. ”

Santo immediately returned to the front army after understanding Mulberry's intentions, but when he made a gesture, the horn immediately blew the horn, and a team of 10,000 people began to break away from the whole army and began to rush towards the location of the third battalion.

"It's a good time, I'll be bored if I don't come again." In front of the third battalion, Wang Houchun stood side by side with Xue Yang with a gun, and when he saw the Tubo people starting to charge, he smiled and said, "Okay, it's up to you now." I listened to Tianyi and Chai Jia blowing you into the sky, and you can't embarrass the two of them in this battle. ”

"Dashuai, don't worry. The 3rd Battalion was fully armed. Xue Yang didn't care about the Tubo people who came to charge, and began to give orders to his troops. But for a while, the war drum corps in the camp began to beat the drums, and the bursts of drums conveyed the will of a commander, and also conveyed an unprecedented majestic wind blowing on the plateau.

"God bless the Tang Dynasty, the Han army is mighty." The position of the third battalion resounded with a tsunami-like roar, and everyone began to change formations, accompanied by the overwhelming rain of arrows fired from the ballistas at the gate of the camp, and a strange atmosphere on the battlefield suddenly began to spread.